Recall Check in VS Code

Questions it answers

Check whether a car, a baby product, a food or a medicine has been recalled in the United States, using the official recall databases.

Ask "does my 2018 Honda Accord have any recalls?", "decode this VIN", "is this car seat recalled?", "was there a recall on this infant formula?" or "any dog food recalls this week?".

Recall Check reads three public U.S. government sources: NHTSA for vehicle recalls and VIN decoding, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for consumer products, and the FDA enforcement reports on openFDA for food, supplements and drugs, plus the FDA's recall announcements for pet food.

Each answer shows what was recalled, why it is dangerous, what the maker will do about it, and the recall number so you can check it at the source.

It covers United States recalls only and is not a safety guarantee: no match does not prove an item is safe, and a match may not cover your exact item. Vehicle recalls are listed by year, make and model, so confirm a specific car at nhtsa.gov/recalls with its VIN.

It never asks for an owner name or a license plate. It stores nothing about you: recall answers are cached for up to 24 hours, and the only lasting record is a daily count of calls per tool.

What it can do

• Lists the NHTSA recalls for a vehicle by model year, make and model
• Decodes a 17-character VIN into year, make, model, trim and engine
• Searches CPSC recalls of consumer products such as cribs, strollers, sleepers and heaters
• Searches FDA food, supplement and drug recalls, optionally limited to recent days
• Lists recent FDA pet food recalls, such as dog or cat food from the last week
• Shows the hazard, the maker's remedy and a link or recall number to confirm at the source

Tools

• check_vehicle_recalls, Check vehicle recalls. Use this when the user asks whether a car, truck or motorcycle has recalls, such as "does my 2018 Honda Accord have any recalls?". Pass the model year, make and model. Returns the NHTSA safety recalls for that year, make and model, newest first, with the component, summary, consequence, the manufacturer's remedy and whether NHTSA says to stop driving or park outside. Recalls are by model, not by VIN, so it cannot say whether one car's repair is still open; send the user to nhtsa.gov/recalls with their VIN for that. US vehicles only.
• decode_vin, Decode a VIN. Use this when the user gives a 17-character vehicle identification number or asks to "decode this VIN". Returns the model year, make, model, trim, body class, manufacturer, plant country, engine and fuel from NHTSA vPIC, and warns when the VIN's check digit does not match. Follow it with check_vehicle_recalls using the year, make and model to list the vehicle's recalls.
• search_product_recalls, Search product recalls. Use this when the user asks whether a consumer product is recalled, such as a crib, stroller, toy, appliance, heater or tool, or "is this car seat recalled?" (for car seat accessories). Pass the brand and product as on the label. Returns matching U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalls, newest first, with the hazard, the remedy, the company contact and the CPSC link. Set withinDays for recent recalls only. Car seats and tires themselves are NHTSA recalls this tool cannot see, and the answer says so. It does not cover vehicles, food or drugs.
• search_food_drug_recalls, Search food and drug recalls. Use this when the user asks about a recall of food, infant formula, a dietary supplement or a medicine, such as "was there a recall on this baby formula?" or "any supplement recalls this week?". Set category to "food" (human food, infant formula and supplements) or "drug". For pet food use search_pet_food_recalls instead. Pass the product words as labels use them ("infant formula", "peanut butter", "ibuprofen"). Set withinDays for recent recalls, such as 7 for this week. Returns FDA enforcement reports with product-title hits ranked above ingredient-text hits, each recall marked with matchKind ("product" or "text"), plus the recall class, product, reason, firm, lot codes and distribution. The matches count is the number of text matches across reports, not a product-recall total. It does not cover pet food, or meat, poultry and egg products regulated by USDA.
• search_pet_food_recalls, Search pet food recalls. Use this when the user asks about a recall of dog food, cat food, pet treats or other pet food, such as "dog food recall this week". Optionally pass a brand or hazard as query, and set withinDays for recent recalls, such as 7 for this week. Returns matching FDA recall announcements, newest first, with the title, date, summary and FDA link. It only sees the FDA's 20 most recent recall announcements (about three weeks) and says so, so for an older recall point the user to the FDA recalls page.

Add Recall Check in VS Code

VS Code reads MCP servers from mcp.json and offers their tools to Copilot Chat in Agent mode. A workspace file at .vscode/mcp.json applies to that project. For every workspace, run MCP: Open User Configuration from the Command Palette and add the same entry there. These steps were checked against the VS Code MCP servers guide on 2026-10-09.

Create or edit the file so it contains this server. VS Code uses a top-level servers object, not mcpServers. Merge it with servers you already have.

{
  "servers": {
    "recalls": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://recalls.openkrill.app/mcp"
    }
  }
}

No command, no headers and no input variables for a key: Recall Check answers without a login. Save the file and select Start above the entry. VS Code asks once whether you trust the server: confirm it. Run MCP: List Servers to check that Recall Check is running. You should see check_vehicle_recalls, decode_vin, search_product_recalls, search_food_drug_recalls, search_pet_food_recalls.

Open the Chat view, choose Agent mode and ask: Does my 2018 Honda Accord have any recalls? The Configure Tools button in the chat input lists the tools of each server, and VS Code may ask you to confirm the first call. The server is public and read-only. It sees only the arguments of each call, so do not paste secrets into the question.

Command line users can add it to the user profile in one step with code --add-mcp and the same name, type and url as JSON. The portable .mcp.json at the project root also works in VS Code, with mcpServers as its top-level key. An organization can turn MCP off through Copilot policy: if the MCP commands are missing, ask the admin.

If it does not work

A call checked on 2026-10-11

A year, make and model is the lookup NHTSA publishes. It is not a VIN-specific safety certificate. The request below was posted to https://recalls.openkrill.app/mcp as tools/call. HTTP 200. Source: the Recall Check server, read 2026-10-11.

{
  "method": "tools/call",
  "params": {
    "name": "check_vehicle_recalls",
    "arguments": {
      "year": 2018,
      "make": "Honda",
      "model": "Accord",
      "limit": 2
    }
  }
}

• status. ok
• notice. US recall data only. This is not a safety guarantee: an item with no match here may still be affected, and a match may not cover your exact item. Confirm with the official source before relying on it. NHTSA lists recalls
• recalls. 2 returned

Repeat the call yourself if you need a newer reading. Cached answers expire. A rate limit is not a result: wait and try again. Nothing in the call is a ranking, a filing, or advice.

Using it in production

Nothing to install and nothing to run: no package, no Python or Node.js version and no environment variable. Recall Check runs on our servers, and your client only needs the URL https://recalls.openkrill.app/mcp.

Use it in other apps

• Recall Check in ChatGPT
• Recall Check in Claude
• Recall Check in Cursor
• Recall Check in Pi

Frequently asked questions

Words on this page

• MCP (Model Context Protocol) definition
• Streamable HTTP transport definition
• Tool primitive definition
• Rate limit policy definition

Source: plugin listing for recalls in this repository, and a live tools/call on 2026-10-11. As of 2026-10-11.